The first few days

NOTE:  I meant to post this several days ago--unfortunately I must have cancelled the update.  More will come when training gets a bit less intense, but trust that I should have enough awesomeness to write the next great American novel within the next week if things keep going as they have been.  Love and blessings.
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It’s been an intense several days.  We spent staging in Honolulu largely finding out what the immediate next steps would be—money card, to be destroyed upon arrival in Micronesia.  Very James Bond.  One mediocre Mexican restaurant in Waikiki and it was time to go.  I was made one of four leaders for our journey from Hawaii to Micronesia; largely, my responsibilities consisted of making sure we had appropriate tips for our bellhop and airport and also in charge of the bag sweep, but this was not much of a job because everyone was well aware of their bags.  Myself and two other volunteers were within 5 minutes of missing our flight out, but it all worked.  Coincidentally, on the rush through Honolulu terminal we ran into two returned Peace Corps volunteers on their way back to the states—crazy feeling to be in a room all together like that.  They gave us our blessing and we were off. 

Flying anywhere for longer than two hours is a drag.  I always hope for a conversational flight buddy, but invariably said buddy is too chatty or not chatty enough for my liking.  I was pleasantly surprised on our hop between Majuro and Kosrae (the link between Marshall Islands and Micronesia, essentially)to find that I had a pretty perfect flight buddy,  Never got her name but she’s from Austin, Texas and has been working as a military contractor in the deserts of southern Cali for two years.  They asked her what position she wanted next, and she wouldn’t give up until they gave her  the Pacific Islands.  Hard work pays off.

Did everything I could to stay awake on the flights over because I am trying hard to avoid jetlag,  I’m sure it’s effecting me to some degree but I have to tell you that I woke up after 8 hours of sleep maybe 20 minutes ago and it’s 6AM in Kolonia, Pohnpei.  Fingers crossed that this means I’m over that obstacle.

Training started virtually as soon as we got off the plane.  We were given these flower y head-wreaths by current volunteers (I’ll put up a photo; until then, think Jesus but with less thorns and more tropical) and transported downtown to our current stop, Yvonne’s Hotel.  I am staying with Ben and Nick, two guys from Wisconsin and Colorado respectively.  Ben and I have been placed together on everything so far, and so I know him very well—we have similar senses of humor, which means that we will inevitably get through this thing together or at least have a clever way to see each other off at some unfortunate but nonetheless awesome volcano sacrifice down the road. 

Training, though, sorry—my brain has been wandering as of late.  Money issues, safety issues, then we got photos and a lot of local fruit.  The bananas here are varied and absolutely delicious.  I interviewed with our training manager, a man named Garrison, and we hit it off completely.  He has invited me to come eat and celebrate with his extended family in the not too distant future, and he was excited to learn that I am interested in serving on the outer islands (sorry, internet—sometimes I have a real desire to get away).  More on my outer island choice later, but for now know that this is absolutely what I want and that so far all is well in that regard.

Language training, to the extent that it has already begun, is going well.  We have two words, and I’m not looking at my notes so here goes nothing:

kaselehlie (caw-sa-lay-lee-uh):  hello/goodbye

And

kalangan (caw-long-on): thank you

If you can’t tell, I’m not tremendously familiar with phonetic spelling but this is how I understand pronunciation of these words.  We were invited out by current volunteers to a spot downtown called Cupid, which I’m sure would have been great but I was tired and felt like drinking would be a really bad move at this point, dehydration and all that.  Instead I walked around for about 15-20 minutes with another volunteer named Gretchen until we found a place called “Wall Mart” that sold some groceries we could understand.  I bought some ramen and corned beef, came back to my room and cooked a bit.  I also tried boiling water to drink, just to see how it would go.  So far, so good.

My first host family will be  interesting—a judge on the island named Nelson Joseph.  Someone tell Alex Enyart about this and let’s get some  transcontinental judge-mail going.  That starts Monday.  This is plenty long enough for now, so until next time, kaselehlie, everybody.

ONE FINAL NOTE: Much love and respect to the mighty Joni Murphy for getting me my first piece of mail! I cannot even tell you how good it felt to have something ready for me as soon as I touched down.  Once you have an address (in Spain or in California) I swear I will write you the greatest thank-you ever and hook up some gorgeous shell jewelery.  One of the best ladies I know, hands down.